50 Gallon Tank Fish Rec's

[dpeter51]

Please help me plan what fish I will purchase to populate my aquarium--it's a 50 gallon (36x15x20"). Like most beginners I probably want too much.
Definitely want:
1) Ocellaris clown (2 would be nice)
2) Royal Gramma
3) Blue Reef Damsel (2 would be nice)
4) Falco Hawk (or possibly a lawnmower blenny or some other bottom-dweller)
Also want but fear it may be too crowded:
5) Flame Angel -or- Coral Beauty
6) Foxface
What do you think? Too many or anything too large? Any suggested substitutions? Thanks!

 

[spiderwoman]

I think your definitely want list is pretty good. I would stay away from Damsels as much as possible. They can be very agressive and very tough to catch when you finally want them out of your tank.

 

[dpeter51]

Thanks spiderwoman. I have read that the chromis damsels are the most peaceful type--do they still sometimes cause problems?

 

[jesses89]

Youll be fine with those Chromis... but itll be best to get an odd number of them... 3? they school better and tend not to pick on each other less in odd numbers.
Good list.

 

[nereef]

2 clowns, a royal grama, 3 chromis, a hawk, and a dwarf angel would be a very nice 50 gallon tank. the foxface (eventually 6-8") will outgrow a 3 foot tank, imo.

 

[dpeter51]

Sweet, thanks. Yeah I had a feeling the foxface may not work because of the size they grow to. Maybe someday if the other half allows a bigger tank.

 

[cabin7882]

I had 3 green chromis in my tank and they got picked on and one eventually died but the 2 I have now are great and stick together and are not aggresive! I started with blue damsels what a mistake they are soooo mean! and very hard to catch as the last person said!

 

[dpeter51]

It looks like the green and the blue chromis are pretty similar in behavior, but to me the blue chromis (or "blue reef damsel") is more attractive. I haven't seen it at the LFS but I see that they are sold by SWF.com--are they commonly available/in stock? Where did you get yours? I think they would make good first inhabitants for the aquarium since they're inexpensive and won't stake out a territory as much as some other fish might.

 

[dpeter51]

Well I saw this at the store and had to have it. It's a Fiji Devil damsel. Hopefully it won't be too aggressive. It was swimming around and looked healthy, but appeared to be the less dominant of the two in the tank because the other one kept chasing it.

From what I'm reading, these are slightly less aggressive than Blue Devils. Best kept singly. Mine must be a female since the dorsal fin is yellow, like in the photo. They say the males only have yellow on the ventral fin (bottom).
So far, I have:
-2 Ocellaris (one ever so slightly smaller than the other, both from the same "batch" at the LFS)
-Royal Gramma (in QT)
-Fiji Devil Damsel (in QT)
-5 snails, mix of Astria and Nassarius
-20 hermits, mostly tiny blue-legged but a couple of bigger ones that have brownish legs (no white band) - I forget what type that might be?
I still want a Flame Angel and I think I'm settling on an orange spotted lawnmower blenny. I also recently started considering a puffer or a small wrasse (six-line, fairy, etc), instead of the foxface. I'll just have to see how the tank looks with everything else--adding one more might be too much, and I've heard that puffers are 50/50 with nipping fins.